On 6/15/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I've also suggested that one or two people should take it upon themselves to really study the candidate over several days, going through their entire history and producing a short report, which other people can base their votes on. Rather than the current system where each person independently supposedly checks the history, and probably votes based on the first 3 edits they see.
That sounds like an excellent idea. I, like many other people in my experience, only tend to vote on RfAs where I know about the candidate, where I have edited many articles that they have edited or participated in many discussions that they have participated in.
This is fine for me, but there are quite a few people who participate on RfA who don't know every candidate well (which is fine - it's a community decision).
Most often, nominators are people who have plenty of experience with the candidate, and perhaps they sometimes forget to communicate clearly to that second group of people who want to participate but aren't familiar with all the candidates. Higher standards for *nominators* means better information for the community.
I would also suggest more standard questions for candidates, and encourage people who add questions of their own.